Last night Sharon Olds Essay

1348 WordsFeb 14th, 20146 Pages

Last Night

The next day, I am almost afraid.
Love? It was more like dragonflies in the sun, 100 degrees at noon, the ends of their abdomens stuck together, I close my eyes when I remember. I hardly knew myself, like something twisting and twisting out of a chrysalis, enormous, without language, all head, all shut eyes, and the humming like madness, the way they writhe away, and do not leave, back, back, away, back. Did I know you? No kiss, no tenderness–more like killing, death-grip holding to life, genitals like violent hands clasped tight barely moving, more like being closed in a great jaw and eaten, and the screaming
I groan to remember it, and when we started to die, then I refuse to remember, the way…show more content…

I think it's to do with pleasure, rather than pain. These two are so intimate at this moment that they just want to be as close as possible. They hold each other tight, hands and the position of his abdomen, which lacks movement, suggesting that he just stays as far in as possible. This also indicates that one partner is sexually dominant the other is submissive.

“holding to life, genitals like violent hands clasped tightbarely moving, more like being closed in a great jaw and eaten, and the screaming “
This sounds violent and rough, but I'm sure that it is meant in a pleasurable way.

“I groan to remember it, and when we started to die, then I refuse to remember”
Started to die is surely the meaning for the moments in which they might pass close to orgasm.

“ the way a drunkard forgets. After,”
I think this is very much a climax. It's a moment that we cannot describe, nor replicate.

“you held my hands extremely hard as my body moved in shudders like the ferry when its”
This is the moment of climax, the moment of orgasm, the moment when they let go and trembled, shuddered uncontrollably.

“axle is loosed past engagement, you kept me sealed exactly against you, our hairlines wet as the arc of a gateway after a cloudburst, you secured me in your arms till I slept”
The cloudburst... surely his orgasm. They are close together, even after both of…

taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.
Olds begins the correlation of the daughter’s haircut and the idea of war early on in the poem. The reader…

In “The Victims” by Sharon Olds it describes a divorce through the eyes of the parents’ children. The first section is shown through past tense as the speaker is a child and the last section is shown in present tense with the speaker already being an adult trying to make sense of past events. The word “it” in the first two lines carries a tremendous weight, hinting at the ever so present abuse and mistreatment, but remaining non-specific. The first part generates a negative tone toward the father…

An Explication of Sharon Olds’ Poem “Feared Drowned.”
Fear is an amazing emotion, in that it has both psychological as well as physiological effects on the human body. In instances of extreme fear, the mind is able to function in a way that is detached and connected to the event simultaneously. In “Feared Drowned,” Sharon Olds presents, in six brief stanzas, this type of instance. Her sparse use of language, rich with metaphors, similes and dark imagery, belies the horror experienced…

Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco. After graduating from Stanford she moved east to earn a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. Olds describes the completion of her doctorate as a transitional moment in her life: standing on the steps of the library at Columbia University, she vowed to become a poet, even if it meant giving up everything she had learned. The vow she made--to write her own poetry, no matter how bad it might be--freed her to develop her own voice. Olds has published…

Sex Without Love by Sharon Olds
'Sex Without Love,' by Sharon Olds passionately described the author's disgust for casual sex in which she vividly animates the immorality of lustful sex through the variety of her language. The sarcasm used in this selection can easily be misunderstood and quite confusing if the words and lines are not analyzed with specific construction. Olds' clever use of imagery and frequent uses of similes, to make the reader imagine actual events, makes this poem come…

In “An Old Man’s Winter Night” Robert Frost uses various metaphors to show an old man’s life coming to an end. Frost’s metaphors are used in the themes of nature, isolation, and symbolism. Throughout the poem he uses analogies to enable the reader to view his work from numerous perspectives. His comparisons allows the reader to envision the oncoming death of the speaker. Frost’s analogies appeals to the reader because they are very pragmatic.
Nature plays a huge role in every poem written by Frost…

Sharon Olds’ poem “Sex Without Love” wonders at the ability for two people to have sex and not involve emotions or pretenses of love. The poem argues that it is better to have sex without love under the premise that love is a false savior for people, and everyone is all alone anyhow. In other words, the claim is that personal interactions do not serve a purpose other than being a distraction, and they will inevitably end. However, the notion that attachment and love are false hopes for people and…

Loss of Innocence in Rite of Passage by Sharon Olds
A rite of passage is defined as a ceremony marking a significant transition or an important event or achievement, both regarded as having great meaning in lives of individuals. In Sharon Olds' moving poem "Rite of Passage", these definitions are illustrated in the lives of a mother and her seven-year-old son. The seriousness and significance of these events are represented in the author's tone, which undergoes many of its own changes as the…

The Last Night
At the beginning of the passage it is instantaneously established that the circumstances in which the two brothers, Andre and Jacob, are currently residing in are appalling. These would be the same conditions that most of the Jewish people would have been residing in prior to being taken to concentration camps. We are aware that the conditions are poor as Faulks tells us that ‘Andre was lying on the floor’ which implies that he has nowhere else to sleep, it also shows how exhausted…

The sheer white curtains billow in through the open window with the warm night air, like the sails of a ship setting off into the night. Lying in bed, I hear the buzz of a scooter whizzing through the streets, ironically followed by the rhythmic clip-clop of horseshoes meeting the cobblestone streets. It is our last night in Salzburg, Austria, and that moment embodies what makes this city appeal to me so much. Somehow, in the midst of the chaos of the twenty-first century, Salzburg has preserved…